Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1879 — Life at Leadville. [ARTICLE]

Life at Leadville.

Cor. of the Bprtnfleld (Mass.) Republican. There are twenty-one gambling houaes in Leadville, and games are conducted openly as Sunday school exercises in Springfield. There is a gambling saloon on Chestnut street where a dozen games are going on at once. The room is large, the full ground area of the building, and is fitted so that short faro is played here, faro there, chuck-a-luck yonder, and lansquenete, high-ball poker, rouge-et-noir, the paddle-wheel and the nutshell game in other parts of the room. The gamblers do not wait for the evening, but begin by 9 o’clock in the morning, although business is apt to be light in the daytime. With the approach of evening, however, the gambling saloons fill up; three seedy-looklng individuals begin to torture a fiddle, a harp and a cornet, and the voice of the banko man rings outupon the evening air. Thegamblers include all class of men. There are the well-dressed professionals, the unlucky professionals, and the “low down” professionals. There are furnace men just from the smelters, laborers from the streets and miners from the headings, all in their working dotheaand with the grime of the day’s toil upon them. Among them stand clerks, accountants and professional men, all intent upon the turn of the wheel or the falling of ths cards. The scene would not be complete without two or three drunken men spoiling for a fight, and there are usually a few men who fancy themselves opera sigh-

ere and bellow unimaginable airs tn voices that make the discords of the fiddle and harp seem sweet as the singing of a summer breeze. As the evening wanes, bummers fall asleep around the stove, whereupon practical jokers tie the sleepers in their chairs ana stick pins into them in order to see them jump. If the suddenly-awakened sleeper jumps well, the pin is applied with such vigor that he usually jumps out through the door carrying the chair with him into the street. The barkeeper starts after the man who is hopping off with the chair, but sees preparations for a raid upon the bar if he leaves it. and so remains at his post cursing the jokers and their victim in the most original and animated manner. Possibly the men engaged in play have glanced up and smiled, but more likely they have noticed nothing unusual and have kept their eyes upon their play. The favorite game is faro. Chips cost from 10 cents to $1 apiece, ana the limit generally is $25. In-

stances have been numerous, however, where pretty tall play has prevailed for a short time. Gamblers, like other people have their lucky days, and when a professional feels that he has “conquered the dealer" he will sometimes stake his pile. Sometimes heavy bets are made out of pure recklessness. The spirit of “make or break” is so strong that if a man has a dollar, he will risk it in some way so as to have two or none. A man came into a gambling saloon on Chestnut street one night and, after watching the play a few minutes, said, “I bet a thousand that the ace wins.” Ihe man meant what he said and the dealer sent for the proprietor of the- bank, who scratched his head and said the bank would take a fourth of the bet. Wouldn’t some of the gentlemen, like to make up the rest “I’ll take $250 of it,” said a man leaning against the bar. “I’ll take $250 more,” said another, and in three minutes $2,000 lay on the table and the dealer took up the cards. He dealt three or four turns and the ace came loser. The partners took $250 apiece, and the man who had risked so much on a single card walked off smiling and as unconcerned as could be.

The dance house prevail upon State street, but they do not differ much in appearance or actions of the inmates from those to be seen in any Eastern city. Men pay 50 cents for the privilege of dancing with a woman whom it would seem to be more to the purpose to give 50 cents to be excused from dancing with- “Residences for ladies” are numerous, and market men and painters and others, who have occasion to visit them, say that they are altogether the best furnished and most luxurious houses in the city. The inmates are said to be of a class much higher than their haggard sisters in the dance houses. They are treated with respect and consideration, and if they unfortunately die receive tender and eloquent obituary notices. Apart from Leadville the city is Leadville the camp. The fortune-hun-ters who rushed into the place during 1878 could not locate in the city, but up on the hillside there was room enough and logs enough. The logs were quickly piled into rude houses, set down anywhere among the stumps. There are winding roads through the camp, but a stranger loses his bearings in no time. He sees in tbe distance, whichever way he looks, snow-clad mountains; he sees about him stump gulches and log or slab houses, and they all look precisely alike. I walked from the Clarendon Hotel to the Little Pittsburg mines four times in three days, ana I never succeeded in going and returning by the same path, and not more than twice followed the same eath to or from the mines. The camp as a life of its own., It has its own saloons, boarding-houses, other houses and stores. 'Hie miners do most of their own cooking, and they do their housework In a way which would render a Massachusetts housekeeper speechless.